duncanhoyle

I'll be sticking with the map enhancements Firefox plugin as the ability to switch to OS Maps is really useful

I've begun to experiment with Wherigo using urwigo and have the following question... Say I have 4 zones and four items. Each item starts in a zone and needs to be put into the correct zone before further steps can be taken. Obviously each item will have very similar code so I was wondering if it's possible to do this with Functions and variables rather than having to create 3 (or possibly more) commands for each item, each with very similar code that only really differs in the name of the object. I'm thinking of something like a 'this' object to reference the item. Is there any way to do this? Curerrently I have: Red Box - starts in Blue zone. Has commands Take, Examine and Drop. Drop is the most complex and has code like: If Compare(Current Zone = Red Zone) Move(Red Box to Red Zone) {and similar for the other zones} Set(Red Box.Drop.Enabled=False) Set(Red Box.Take.Enabled=True) Show Screen(Main Screen) This is likely to have more code added and I want to make extensibility easier and the code more maintainable. Also, the first step of the Red Box Drop command is to put the Red Box into the zone in which the user is currently standing. Is there a neater way to do this using Current Zone? I've had a look online but found no solution so had to code in a fairly long-winded manner. Any suggestions? Also, is there any way to reset a cartridge to it's initial state? And, is there a way to change the order of commands once they've been created? Thanks Duncan

Try the map enhancements plugin http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/109145 I use it in Firefox and it works well. It gives OS 1:50k plus various Google maps

I've just noticed that there's a Wherigo close by as well (http://coord.info/GC2QPH1). Having done my first ast weekend I'm keen to try another

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll look into them closer to the time

I'll be spending 4 days in Southend in April (for the British Juggling Convention) and wondered if anyone could recommend some fun/interesting caches to do in the area. I'm happy to travel 30 minutes or so but don't really want to go south of the estuary, although there are some interesting ones there. I'm planning to go for the one on the end of the pier and perhaps The Hadleigh Mega Tree Trail that's it so far. Thanks Duncan

Manual said when temp changes, you move a long distance, or change batteries. ( or acts goofy ) ... And needs calibration well away from anything metal or power lines. The first device I owned had a digital compass and was always acting goofy and needed calibration all the time. ( now I avoid them at all cost ) Can you turn off the digital compass in settings? ( I think you can? ). Might be a nice option if it starts to bug you. Yes, I've just found that you can (on Compass screen select 'Setup heading' and set Compass to Off). This seems unfortunate but I'll just have to cope. I'll contact Garmin and see if they have anything to say about it

I forgot to say ... The issue I had yesterday with the compass was fixed by doing a 'Calibrate Compass'. Should I really need to do this after travelling just 2 miles by car? In the past I've had to do this several times whilst out walking and the previous time I was in almost white out conditions in the mountains - not somewhere where you'd want the gps to be 180 degrees out! The problem appears to occur in both compass mode and map mode. I've wondered if the problem is caused by the way I carry the gps whilst walking - if I'm wearing a rucksack the it's usually clipped horizontally into the shoulder strap at chest height. Sometimes it's just hanging around my neck by the lanyard and swings quite a bit. I once managed to caused the problem by shaking the device fairly rapidly trying to replicate what might happen if I was running.

I managed to get out to test my Etrex 30 today and it was mostly ok - managed a 10 mile walk with 7 caches. However, I did encounter an issue with the compasss that has occurred off and on since I've had the device (since October-ish 2011). I'm not sure if it's the same as the sticky issue that others are reporting and it's difficult to recreate, but this time I filmed it. The compass appears to get confused and starts to point in the wrong direction when I'm stationary. When I start to walk it corrects itself but when I stop it again points in the wrong direction. The device has Glonass switched off, WAAS on. I've just wondered about the profile after seeing it mentioned elsewhere and it looks as though it was set to Recreational rather Geocaching (not sure if this is likely to make a difference - I wouldn't expect this behaviour in any profile). Before the start of my walk I calibrated the compasss. I did a 10 mile walk navigating to caches using a combination of the map and compass screens, each using the Geocaching dashboard. Part way through the walk the compass was acting strangely (pointing in the opposite direction than expected whilst stationary and correceting itself when walking) but this only happend for a couple of minutes. At that time I was in a small clearing amongst thin conifer trees. After the walk I got back to the car and drove 2 miles down the road to a cache. As I approached the cache I noticed unusual compass behaviour again and have attached a short video (apologies for a lack of focus - I just had my phone for filming). When the film starts the cache is directly in front of me underneath the lowest of the stone steps which I pan up to. North is to the left of the screen. When I first pan down to the gps you can see the arrow pointing N but as I approach the cache it suddenly flips to point towards the cache. (notice that the dashboard compass maintains the same orientation as it started with). When I stop the main compass flips again, with the arrow pointing to the S on the dial but actually pointing to North in the real world. I then turn 180 and walk back towards the start position. During the turn and before I start walking the arrow continues to point to S on the dial. As I begin to walk the dial rotates approx. 1/8th of a turn CW but as I continue to walk in a straight line at a constant speed the dial turns back. Again I turn 180 and walk towards the cache. At this point the arrow is pointing behind me, away from the cache. As I walk the arrow turns to point towards the cache but when I stop it flips to point behing me (approx 180 degrees out). I repeat this a few times... At the end I switch to the satellite screen to give an idea of reception (9 shown on screen). Notice that throughout the video the distance does increase/decrease as expected, so this doesn't appear to be the sticky issue. Any comments?

After waiting a couple of hours there had been no change to the screen and all I could do was remove a battery and reboot. On doing so the unit again validated the update, loaded the loader and this time proceeded to apply the update. It's now working as expected ready for testing tomorrow. I have a vague recollection that this happened on a previous update

So, I'm doing the update and the GPS has now been sat there showing 'Loader Loading' for a good 20 minutes. Is this normal? I'm pretty sure that it hasn't taken that long in the past. It got through the checking update screen pretty quickly. Fingers crossed that I don't need to get another unit replaced...

Good idea. One of my cache ideas that I've yet to set is based on tree id and will be a multi or mystery that takes people to specific trees that they have to identify. Still haven't quite come up with the final details yet though.

I've had issues with the arrow pointing in the wrong direction. Last weekend I was out on a walking trip with no caching involved and on one day I had to calibrate the compass at least twice within a 6 hour period. At the time we were walking in the clouds with a lot of snow on the ground and navigation was extremely difficult. We were in the open all day and not in any tree cover. Luckily on the occasions when the 30 was pointing in the wrong direction I realised fairly quickly as I was also carrying a map and compass. I've had this problem in the past but have been unable to repeat at will. I was using the map, moving the cursor and clicking to select the next destination. I had the distance and direction pointer as small icons. In the past I've suspected it's the use of these additional waypoints that have caused the problem. I've also had arrow issues when navigating to a cache - I walk away from the arrow direction but the distance decrease. I was using an Extrex 30 with the most recent (non-beta) firmware. I've now installed the beta and hope to test today. Another thing I've noticed is that the if you rotate the gps in your hand whilst walking in a straight line to a cache/waypoint the arrow does not update until you stop moving. If you keep holding the gps at the same angle to your body but change your direction of walk the arrow does update whilst moving.

I have a couple of mystery caches, one with 14 watchers and one with 6. Despite my request not to post spoilers a recent finder mentioned the key to solving one of the caches in his log. This log was then emailed to all the watchers. As soon as I saw the log I encrypted it and asked the finder to remove the spoiler. Once the log was changed (abnd even if I'd deleted it) the watchers still have it and will be able to read the solution. Would it be possible to change the notification so that watchers are just told of a find/dnf etc? If they want to read the logs they must go to the site or phone app. This delay would enable the owner to check logs for spoilers with a chance that watchers won't have seen them.

I've made a few like this but haven't placed them yet. In addition to super glue I also ran a hot soldering iron around the join to melt the 2 halves together. I tested one immersed in water and left rolling around in the bottom of my shower and it appears to work well.

I've always added Child Coordinates in GSAK with the 'final location type. When I export for Memory Map any final locations (and stages, parking etc) get added as waypoints with the relevant icon. They also get exported with the GPX export as well. I've never investigated the Corrected Coordinate facility as what I do now works for mee.

I have the 30 and connect to Windows but they're likely to work the same... Outside of Basecamp I think the only thing you'll be able to do is connect the device and the access it as a USB drive. You can then delete GPX files but not individual caches. Once the GPX has been deleted you can copy across an updated one which doesn't have the caches on that you've found. If the GPX files are stored on an MicroSD card then you could also connect to that using a card reader and do the same.

As far as I know you can't delete caches from the unit - either individual caches or all caches in a gpx. You'd have to do that from the computer. Using the computer you can (I think) delete individual or multiple caches with Basecamp. You can delete gpx files using whichever file manager you choose. I ran into a problem when I deleted a gpx file from the unit using Windows Explorer, copied one across with the same name and found that the unit wouldn't list any caches at all, which was frustrating as I was away for a couple of days. Since then I delete the gpx file, disconnect the unit and switch it on, wait for it to start up and recognise that the gpx has gone, connect to computer and copy the new file across. I've only used it with Windows XP so can't say for other systems. Whilst I'm out caching I always log attempts and mark found caches so that they no longer appear in the search. Duncan

I have several pocket queries that run regularly (a couple of them more than twice per week) and all are set to return 1000 caches. In an attempt to improve download/import into GSAK times I was wondering about changing the 'Placed during' times to between now and the latest possible date (currently end of 2013). This will obviously only return caches that have been placed during those times but I was wondering if it will pick up caches being enabled or disabled. Yes or no?

I was out on a caching session yesterday and once again had issues with the compass, distances and directions on my Etrex 30. Calibrating the compass appeared to fix this but in one instance I had to calibrate twice within 2 minutes. I was under tree cover but it wasn't particularly dense- I could see plenty of sky. The gps appeared to freeze on a set distance and heading and didn't move whilst I walked for at least 10m. It then suddenly pointed back in the other direction and updated the distance. Later in the day I was out in the open and it did the same thing. I also noticed that the direction arrow didn't always update accurately as I turned in a circle. I had a feeling that the problems happened more often when I was alternating between map mode (with caching dashboard) and compass mode. I'll be testing again today and will report back

The compass on mine needs calibrating regularly as well. The last time I went out it must have been required at least 10 times over a period of 30 minutes. During this time it was stored vertically in my trouser pocket and my guess is that is was subjected to too much movement. Also make sure that it isn't stored near any device with a magent (such as a phone or pda case).

Did you populate one of the databases from the API download function? I didn't use the "download PQs" option, but the "Get Geocaches" option. Sorry, I used the 'download PQs' option rather than the 'Get Geocaches' one. A quick test this morning showed the behaviour that you report - the Long Description doesn't include the text at the end even when there are child waypoints in the DB. It would appear to be a fault with the api and something that should be brought up on their support forum. In the meantime, it should be possible to write a GSAK macro that scans through the whole db to find caches where the child waypoints are > 0 and there are no child waypoints mentioned in the long description. If caches are found where this is the case then it should be possible for the macro to change the long description. A quck look through the macros shows one called ChildrenToHTML which almost does the opposite and scans for caches where there are children mentioned in the long description but no actual children in the db. It should be possible to reverse this. (there may already be such a macro or something simliar in existence but I didn't have time for a thorough look)

Another vote for the TalkyToaster maps from me. As far as I can tell it is possible to create custom maps from Memory Map files but there are limits to the size of tiles (1mb,1024x1024 I think) and the number of tiles (100). In the end I gave up. The only other options (I think) are to buy the expensive 1:25k Birdseye maps or the 1:50k Discoverer maps. Apparentaly there are torrents of the 50k maps floating about on the net but I haven't looked into that (yet!)

My Etrex30 has now been sent back to Garmin :-( Turn around should be less than 10 days... I now have a new Etrex replaced under warrantry. I'm a little annoyed that they didn't even apologise for the 3 weeks that I've been without my device and that I then had to phone up to get my mapping registration moved over. Apparently there was a batch of these devices that had a sound issue and so far they've had to replace 3.

That's strange. I just did a quick test on 2 clean dbs, one with data imported from a zip and one with the same data got using the 'Download pocket queries' option on the Geocaching.com access menu. In each db I filtered to show a cache which I know has a parking waypoint and then exported the GPX file. Doing a Compare on both files gives a perfect match except for the time stamp. Both exported files have an additional waypoint in the Long Description and separate waypoint element in the file. I know that I've modified the GPX export form within one of my macros so perhaps what you're wanting can be achieved by playing with the GPX export dialog. Hope this helps Duncan